Gone but not Forgotten
Una Ann Moyer
Button Blanket by Una Ann Moyer, 2020. Installation at the Liu Lobby Gallery, UBC.
“As an Elder once said to me, as she was reminiscing about her life, she would pause and say, “Gone but not Forgotten”. The importance of our Ancestors, where they walked, what they did, and the legacies they left behind. Our Regalia tells a story of our connection to our Ancestors, traditions, land and medicines. As part of this exhibit, I chose to reflect our traditional Button Robe, that embraces who we are. Red Melton to symbolize mother earth, black melton for the borders to represent our home, traditional Tahltan beadwork patterns to represent our Ancestors, images of our medicine that surrounds us as we walk across our territory. With each shell button added, a prayer is said as a blessing to our land, our nation, our people. For the past twenty-five years, I have shared my knowledge of our traditional ways to culturally empower our people. To give them strength, to move forward and orally practise the traditional teachings from generation to generation. The strength of our Culture and Traditions will live on by continuing to encourage and recognize the importance of showing who we are, where we come from, and how we belong.” - Una-Ann Moyer
Emergence Series
Emergence 1,2,5+6 vinyl prints by Tsēmā Igharas, 2016-2020. Installation at the Liu Lobby Gallery, UBC.
“My artistic work grapples with the body, my body as it has witnessed material and metaphysical landscapes changing and continually impacted, shaken and consumed by corporate resource extraction. What is important to me in making and presenting my work is to engage with and critique how the value of land and natural resources are created and assessed through Western measures of wealth (social, economic, environmental, power, ownership) and how these types of evaluations impact cultural lifeways. My praxis is sparked by strategies of Indigenous resistance to settler colonialism, embodied knowledge and everyday acts of decolonization as ways to understand the imaginary ‘true North’ and industrial reverberations felt by those who live downstream.” - Tsēmā Igharas
Coming Out of the Darkness
Painted and carved box by Sage Nowak, 2020. Installation at the Liu Lobby Gallery, UBC.
“I am a carver, painter, muralist, drummaker, dancer, and tattoo artist. All of my work is a reflection and continuation of my culture and ancestry. It is my connection to spirit and self-understanding. Throughout my journey as an artist, I have carved masks, panels, totem poles and learned where they came from, their purpose, and meaning. By following ancient practices, it allows me to re-live the forgotten ways in the present day and understand our history. To understand the art form is to learn the culture. To learn the culture is to carry on our identity as Indigenous people and show society that we are still here and have not forgotten our ways of life.” - Sage Nowak
The Wind Has Something to Say I
Performance by Tsēmā Igharas, documented by Tahltan youth, Ocean van Mierlo, Mount Edziza, British Columbia, Canada, 2018. Transparent Vinyl print at the Liu Lobby Gallery, UBC.
“The Wind Has Something to Say is an ongoing performance and photography series made in collaboration with Tahltan youth on the Tene Mehodihi Adventures. The performances are photographed near Eve’s cone on Mount Edziza in Tahltan territory as the hikers traveled into the alpine. The series captures the wind, poses from the performance artists (including the youth) and the amazing volcanic landscape. The bright coloured fabric is a reference to the colours of the mining industry and when the wind and our bodies activate the fabric, it can be a defiant led by the wind and the land and an action to mark the land as Tahltan territory.” Tsēmā Igharas
Where Do I Go?
Video artwork by Sophia Biedka, 2020. Installation at the Liu Lobby Gallery, UBC.
“The materials for “Where Do I Go, We Have Faltered” have been collected over the past three years during my collaboration with Tene Mehodihi, and in this work, serves as a form of mediation on my exchange with the community and their land. The moments in the film are not specific to the modern era but relay a connection that runs deeper than our conceptual acknowledgement of time. The images and sounds themselves are not the essential content, but the process through which their cast and myself have arrived at our current status both interpersonally and historically.
The soundscape featured throughout the gallery evokes the consciousness of the Tahltan landscape blurring the lines between re-creation and representation in rejection of traditional documentary cinema. The sound is not presented as a truth but as a subjective experience of place. By returning to the outdated technology of CRT TVs, this work acts as reclamation and revitalization of technology while being witness, from a settler’s perspective, to the reclamation/revitalization of Tahltan culture by its youth. The unreliability and complexity of analogue screens playing digital images involves systems of signal conversion, image reconstruction, and variation that forces an acceptance of the incurable. The action of sourcing the many materials needed for this installation, and concluding with a product that is still so unpredictable, is a manifestation of my artistic impasse. The technology's tendency to malfunction without explanation pays homage to my own conflictions about using my filmed materials in a way that feels appropriate and honest to my process as a filmmaker, but also upholds my responsibilities to Tene Mehodihi.” - Sophia Biedka
Black is the New Gold
Collaborative artwork by Sophia Biedka (film), Tsēmā Igharas (performance) and Sage Nowak (box) 2020. Installation at the Liu Lobby Gallery, UBC.
“Black is the New Gold” is a collaborative installation between Sage Novak who carved and painted the box, performance artist, Tsēmā Igharas, and film-maker Sophia Biedka. The box acts as a container for the a video projection- conceptually it acts as a container for the artists’ body and the land that is sacred to our Tahltan ancestors. The video is filmed at Kitsu Plateau on Mount Edziza at an ancient obsidian rick quarry. This rock was considered the most valuable material for its’ inherent qualities, suitable for blades and tool making- it is not only beautiful, but more valuable than gold.” - Sage Novak, Tsēmā Igharas and Sophia Biedka
Real Camo
Backlit print of performance collage by Tsēmā Igharas, photographed by Tahltan youth, Freya Podlasly, Mount Edziza, British Columbia, Canada, 2019. Installation at the Lab of Archeology at The Museum of Anthropology, UBC.